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在阿姆斯特丹的特维德·赫尔摩斯街和E·C·惠金斯街的交合处，我看见一位将近三十岁的女士沿人行道推着自行车。她穿着灰色长外套，里面是橘黄色套衫，脚下是褐色平跟鞋；她戴着一副很平常的眼镜，赤褐色的头发在脑后挽成一个髻。她大大方方地走着，没有一点好奇，似乎这是她的城市。在自行车的车把上挂着一个篮子，里面放了一长条面包和一盒果汁，果汁纸盒上印着“好胃口”（Goudappeltje）的字样，这“好胃口”的拼写中t和j是连在一起的，中间并无元音字母，对此，她已习以为常了。如果她是推着自行车去商店，或是走在高大的公寓街区，可以看见公寓顶楼上吊运家具的吊钩，那么，我们不会感觉出任何的异国情调。
In Amsterdam, on the corner of Tweede Helmets Straat and Eerste Constantijn Huygens Straat, I notice a woman in her late twenties pushing a bicycle along the pavement. Her auburn hair is drawn into a bun; she is wearing a long grey coat, an orange pullover, flat brown shoes and a pair of practical-looking glasses. It seems that this is her part of town, for she walks confidently and without curiosity. In a basket attached to the handlebars of her bicycle is a loaf of bread and a carton on which is written Goudappeltje . She sees nothing peculiar in at and j stuck together without a vowel on her apple juice carton. There is nothing exotic for her about pushing a bicycle to the shops or in the tall apartment blocks with their hooks on the top floor for hoisting furniture.
好奇会驱使我们寻求理解。她上哪儿去？她在想些什么？她的朋友是谁？福楼拜和坎普乘船到马赛，然后从那里换上一艘开往亚历山大的班轮时，福楼拜突然对另一位女人产生了类似的强烈好奇。船上别的乘客都在心不在焉地看风景，福楼拜的眼睛盯住的却是站在甲板上的一位女士。福楼拜在埃及旅行手记中写道，她是“一个年轻、苗条的女子，戴着草帽，草帽上罩着长长的绿色面纱；她穿着一件紧身礼服，礼服外还套着一件短的丝质上衣。礼服有丝绒领子，两侧都有口袋。她的双手正插在口袋里。礼服正面，两排钮扣自上而下紧扣着，勾勒出了她的曲线，再往下，便是无数的褶裥。风中，这些褶裥在她的膝部飘舞。她戴着紧紧的黑色手套，旅程中的多数时候，她都倚着船舷，看着河流两岸的风景……我常有一种冲动，想为我所遇上的人编故事，强烈的好奇心迫使我想知道她们过的是怎样一种生活。我想知道她们的职业，她们的国籍，她们的姓名；我想知道她们此时此刻在想些什么，她们生活中有何遗憾，她们的期求又是什么？我还想知道她们曾有过怎样的恋情，而现在她们的梦想又是指向何方……如果碰巧遇上的是一位女士（特别是年轻的女士），这种好奇心的驱动力就会变得尤为强烈。老实说，你迫不及待地想看到她赤裸时的样子，想听到她的倾心告白。你会想尽办法打听她从哪里来，又将到哪里去？为什么她现在身处此地而非他方？你的眼光不停地在她身上游走，脑子里想象着自己同她坠入情网，认定她非常痴情。你想象她的卧室，还有许许多多和她相关的事情……直至她下床时在卧室里穿的旧拖鞋”。
Desire elicits a need to understand. Where is she going? What are her thoughts? Who are her friends? On the river boat that carried Flaubert and Du Camp to Marseilles, whence they caught the steamer for Alexandria, Flaubert had been overcome by similar questions about another woman. While other passengers gazed absent-mindedly at the scenery, Flaubert fixed his eyes on a woman on deck. She was, he wrote in his Egyptian travel journal, 'a young and slender creature wearing a long green veil over her straw hat. Under her silk jacket, she had on a short frock coat with a velvet collar and pockets on either side in which she had put her hands. Two rows of buttons ran down her front, holding her in tightly and tracing the outline of her hips, from which flowed the numerous pleats of her dress, which rubbed against her knees in the wind. She wore tight black gloves and spent most of the journey leaning against the railing looking out at the banks of the river … I'm obsessed with inventing stories for people I come across. An overwhelming curiosity makes me ask myself what their lives might be like. I want to know what they do, where they're from, their names, what they're thinking about at that moment, what they regret, what they hope for, their past loves, their current dreams … and if they happen to be women (especially youngish ones) then the urge becomes intense. How quickly you would want to see her naked, admit it, and naked through to her heart. How you try to learn where she comes from, where she's going, why she's here and not elsewhere! While letting your eyes wander all over her, you imagine love affairs for her, you ascribe her deep feelings. You think of the bedroom she must have, and a thousand things besides … right down to the battered slippers into which she must slip her feet when she gets out of bed.'
在异域，一个有吸引力的人除了具有我们本国人所具有的魅力外，他所处国度的异域情调也让他生辉不少。如果爱是寻求那些我们自身所不具备、却为我们所爱之人独有的个性魅力，那么，当我们和异域情人相爱时，我们更有理由期待自己融入一种我们自身文化所缺失的价值和观念之中。
To the appeal that an attractive person might possess in our own country is added, in an exotic land, an attraction deriving from their location. If it is true that love is a pursuit in others of qualities we lack in ourselves, then in our love of someone from another country, one ambition may be to weld ourselves more closely to values missing from our own culture.
德拉克洛瓦所作与摩洛哥相关的油画似乎就给我们传递了这样的信息：对一个地方的向往是如何点燃我们对生活在那个地方的人的欲望。就拿《呆在家里的阿尔及尔女人》来说，看到这幅画的人可能就像福楼拜对他所遭遇的女性一样，急切地想知道“她们的姓名，想知道她们此时此刻在想些什么，她们的生活中有何遗憾，她们的期求又是什么？还想知道她们曾有过什么样的恋情，而现在她们的梦想又是指向何方……”
In his Moroccan paintings, Delacroix appeared to suggest how desire for a place might fuel desire for the people within it. Of the subjects of his Women of Algiers in Their Apartment(1834), for example, the viewer might long to know, as Flaubert longed to know of the women he passed, 'their names, what they're thinking about at that moment, what they regret, what they hope for, whom they have loved, what they dream of … '
欧仁·德拉克洛瓦：《呆在家里的阿尔及尔女人》，1834年
福楼拜在埃及的传奇般的性经历虽是一种近乎买卖的嫖妓行为，但并非与感情无涉。这次性经历发生在一个叫埃斯纳的小镇。埃斯纳位于尼罗河西岸，卢克索以南约五十公里。福楼拜和坎普曾在那里留宿，并结识了一位有名的交际花——库丘珂·哈娜姆。库丘珂还以能歌善舞和见多识广而知名。“妓女”一词是与库丘珂尊贵的地位不相称的。福楼拜对她一见钟情：“她的皮肤，特别是躯体的皮肤，略带咖啡色。弯腰时，丰满部位的肌肤呈波浪状，宛若一道道古铜色的山脊。她有着黑色的大眼睛，黑色的眉毛，宽大的鼻孔，圆实的双肩，双乳则苹果般饱满突出……她的头发也是黑色，卷曲蓬松，从前额开始中分，往两边梳至脑后……她右上方的一颗门牙似乎已被虫蛀了。”
Flaubert's legendary sexual experience in Egypt was commercial, but not unfeeling. It took place in the small town of Esna, on the western bank of the Nile, some fifty kilometres south of Luxor. Flaubert and Du Camp had stopped in Esna for the night and been introduced to a famous courtesan, who also had a reputation as an almeh or learned woman. The word prostitute does not capture the dignity of Kuchuk Hanem's role. Flaubert desired her at first sight: 'Her skin, particularly on her body, is slightly coffee-coloured. When she bends, her flesh ripples into bronze ridges. Her eyes are dark and enormous. Her eyebrows black, her nostils open and wide; heavy shoulders, full, apple-shaped breasts … her black hair, wavy, unruly, pulled straight back on each side from a centre parting beginning at the forehead … she has one upper incisor, right, which is beginning to go bad.'
库丘珂邀请福楼拜到她布置简单的家里。那晚，天空十分清朗，但格外地冷。在他的本子里，福楼拜有这样的记载：“我们上床了……她把手放在我的手中，睡着了，微微地打着鼾。室内桌灯如豆，一块三角形的光斑，朦胧的金属色，落在她漂亮的额头上，而她面部的其他各处都在阴影里。她的小狗则在沙发上，睡在我的丝绒夹克衫上。她抱怨说有点咳嗽，因此我将自己的毛皮披风加盖在她的睡毯上……我则思绪翻涌，想起了很多的往事。她的腹部紧贴着我的屁股，我还感觉到她的胸脯，远比她的腹部暖热，贴着我，像是热乎乎的熨斗……我们就这样紧拥在一起，这种身体的交流，胜过千言万语。她睡着了，手和大腿自然地收缩着，似乎在禁不住地颤栗……当你离开的时候，你确信自己已在身后留下了一份记忆，确信在众多的曾在她的住处留宿的人中，她会更多地记起你，确信你会被她藏在心底，这是一件多么让人得意和自傲的事情！”
Kuchuk invited Flaubert back to her modest house. It was an unusually cold night, with a clear sky. In his notebook, the Frenchman recorded: 'We went to bed … She falls asleep with her hand in mine. She snores. The lamp, shining feebly, casts a triangular gleam, the colour of pale metal, on her beautiful forehead; the rest of her face was in shadow. Her little dog slept on my silk jacket on the divan. Since she complained of a cough, I put my pelisse over her blanket … I gave myself over to intense reveries, full of reminiscences. Feeling of her stomach against my buttocks. Her mound warmer than her stomach, heated me like a hot iron … we told each other a great many things through touch. As she slept she kept contracting her hands and thighs mechanically, like involuntary shudders … How flattering it would be to one's pride if at the moment of leaving you were sure that you left a memory behind, that she would think of you more than of the others who have been there, that you would remain in her heart.'
福楼拜沿着尼罗河而下的整个行程中从未停止过对库丘珂的怀念。在从菲莱到阿斯旺的返程中，福楼拜和坎普在埃斯纳再度停留，并再次探访了库丘珂。这次见面只能让福楼拜愈发伤感：“无边的悲哀……这就是结局！我将再也不能见到她。记忆中，她的容颜将慢慢消失。”事实是，这以后，福楼拜终其一生都未忘却库丘珂的容颜。
Dreams of Kuchuk Hanem accompanied Flaubert down the Nile. On their way back from Philae and Aswan, he and Du Camp stopped off at Esna to visit her once more. The second meeting made Flaubert more melancholy than the first: 'Infinite sadness … this is the end; I'll not see her again, and gradually her face will fade from my memory.' It never did.
